Nanodevices are structures having dimensions measured in nanometers. Nanotechnology is a field associated with formation of nanodevices, and is a growing field expected to make significant impacts in diverse subject areas, including, for example, biology, chemistry, computer science and electronics.
Nanodevices include, for example, quantum dots and anti-dots. A quantum dot is a particle of matter in which addition or removal of an electron changes its properties in some useful way.
Quantum dots and anti-dots can have numerous applications. For instance, quantum dots and anti-dots can significantly increase the density of electronic devices, which can increase performance of the devices. Quantum dots and anti-dots may be particularly useful in high-density memory and storage media. Specifically, a quantum dot or anti-dot can be incorporated into data storage devices. If the position of an electron within a quantum dot or anti-dot changes a state of the dot or anti-dot, the quantum dot or anti-dot can represent a byte of data.
Although various techniques have been developed for forming nanodevices, there remains a need to develop methodologies which can enable large-scale fabrication of the devices. Accordingly, it is desirable to develop new techniques for fabrication of nanodevices.
Another aspect of the prior art is that it is frequently desirable to form specific patterns of materials over substrates. Photolithography is commonly utilized to form the patterns, but photolithography has limitations imposed by, among other things, the wavelength of light utilized, which limits the minimum feature size which can be formed with photolithographic processing. Accordingly, it is desired to develop new methods which can be utilized for forming patterns of materials, and it is particularly desired to develop new methods which can be utilized to form features having smaller dimensions than can be practically formed with photolithography.